


our children's dad

by sweetiejelly



Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Grandmothers, M/M, POV Multiple, Plants, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetiejelly/pseuds/sweetiejelly
Summary: "Is it your dad?" He asks the tender open palms of certain death.Or, a post-camp fic where King talks to his grandmother before going back to the condo, to Ram.
Relationships: King/Ram (My Engineer)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 170





	our children's dad

**I. King**

King almost jumps out of the car five different times on the way to his grandmother's. It's not the heat, which he's used to, or the bumpiness of the road as it winds deeper into the country. It's not even the quiet, which he remedies with pop songs, rock songs, don't-think-about-your-love songs.

But King's mind works relentlessly, works fast, zips its way from "what the-?" to "oh, I see" in no time. And King's mind's screaming at him: _he knows. He wasn't drunk. He knows and he let King kiss him. He-_

Damn it, King doesn't remember. He remembers Ram's hands warm over his cheeks and Ram's sweet mouth thorough over his. And then he remembers waking up tucked into Ram's heat.

 _What did I do? Did I do something inappropriate?_ From the way Ram acted this morning, it doesn't seem like it. Still, King doesn't know for sure and he wants to go back and kick himself, kick his past self for getting wasted.

"My baby King," his grandmother pats his cheek after dinner. "Let's go for a walk."

King follows her out to the pond, where lively chitchat of insects almost drowns out his thoughts. The lovely scents, too, distract. His grandmother points out the new growths to him and the new toads too.

"There are five families now. Do you remember their mating call?"

King chuckles. "Yeah." He remembers. He used to mimic them, mimic them so well the mosquitoes stay clear of him.

"Everything grows and changes, but these little ones are extra dramatic."

King hums his assent, trailing his hands over the fronds they pass.

"You've grown too." She turns to look at him. "What's her name?"

"Huh? Who?"

At her unimpressed face, King continues, "Ah! You mean Ai'Ning! _Ram_."

"Ram? What a wonderful, weird name."

King has to smile. His grandma gets it, gets him. "He is, except more..." (wonderful) "...weird."

"How nice." His grandmother turns back around and starts walking again. "Tell me about him, your Ram."

 _Your Ram._ King feels a blush rise to his cheeks for no good reason. "He-" King raises a hand to his neck, below his ear. "- has a tattoo here of a dream catcher. He has lots of tattoos. On his arms too and between his fingers and-"

Truth is he's glimpsed more when they were in the shower together that once, half awake and rushed for time. There was something serpentine around Ram's hip and King almost reached out and touched. He had to turn around, _away_ , so he couldn't.

King shakes his head. Nope, he's not thinking about that with his grandmother five paces away. He clears his throat. "He's a good boxer. He doesn't eat ginger. He has a little brother and three dogs. Well, more than three dogs. He feeds the strays on campus and they love him. They listen to him. Not that he talks much. He's very quiet. He's said maybe a hundred words to me. But, he- he's a good friend."

King was thinking of Duen, of how protective Ram gets of him. But Ram took care of him too, when King was feverish and hurt. Ram let him hold on when he got stitches, let him hold on hard enough to bruise. And Ram made him soup and Ram brought him medicine and Ram- Ram held him when he was cold.

"You have many good friends, King." His grandmother plucks at a weed.

King hears what she doesn't say: _is he just a friend?_ (King's pretty good at filling in the gaps now.)

"Did I ever tell you about that time I almost broke up with your grandfather?"

"What? No! Why? What happened?" All of King's life he's only heard good things, like how his grandfather ran to the market five different times just to buy his grandma the exact right wok.

"I was really young. Maybe your age?" His grandmother laughs. "I was beautiful."

"You're still beautiful, grandma."

"Of course," she says easily. "But back then I was _really_ beautiful and just as stupid. I stole your grandfather's first kiss, you know? And then I ran away."

King swallows down the unease. Did he- he didn't steal Ram's first kiss, did he? And the second and the third and the-

"Your grandfather, who had never so much as touched soil in his life, planted a jasmine for me. At the end of the school year, it bloomed so well he was able to give me a plant _and_ a flower crown. I ran away with just the crown after I stole the kiss. Ah, for a week I lived in regret."

"A week?"

"Mmm, a week later, he handed my mother the pot of jasmine and a note. The note was full of care instructions - part sun, will need oil for spider mites. I was so disappointed. And then I saw the white tip of a paper sticking out of the soil."

"Secret note?"

"Yes, secret. This was before cellphones, you know."

When his grandmother says nothing more, King blinks alert.

"Wait. Come on, grandma! You'd tell your favorite grandson, right?" He almost trips catching up to her.

"Well, just for my favorite grandson." She shares a conspiratory smile with him. "Your grandfather wrote: this jasmine is yours."

"That's it?"

"Right? I was so mad, I marched up to him the next day and asked him what he meant by that. And he smiled and said: you came."

King cracks up laughing. "And I thought I got my smarts from you, grandma."

"Brat." His grandmother smacks his arm. "You got it from all of us. You're blessed. Your Ram - he made you run away? Did he give you a gift too?"

With a start, King realizes that Ram did indeed give him a flower crown. Gave him wants that turned into needs in a dark tent. "I- did a bad thing, grandma. I kissed him and then hoped he was too drunk to remember. And he went with it. But on my way here, he texted me." King fishes out his phone to show her: _I wasn't drunk last night_.

"So he gave you the same thing your grandfather gave me."

"Hmm?" King tries to think what that could be.

"Space," his grandmother tells him. "And time to reflect."

"Grandma," King fidgets as he slips the phone back into his pocket. "Can I stay here with you forever?"

"Oh, that'd be my luck! To have my favorite grandson here by my side." She pats his hand gently.

Her kindness makes him think of Ram, how Ram is also kind. But how different it felt when Ram was this close.

"I've never felt this way," King confesses.

"I've never seen you this way," she agrees easily. "Come, we're almost to the lilies."

  
**II. Ram**

Ram has as many words as the next guy. They just happen to remain mostly in his mind. Most people minded, but his friends didn't. His dogs didn't. And King, King especially didn't. Ram likes that about King a lot. (Ram likes a lot about King.)

What Ram doesn't like though is this silence from King. The King he knows is vibrant, says what he thinks and touches what he likes. (Touches plants. Touches Ram's tattoos. Touches Ram.)

The King Ram likes is far away, at his grandmother's house. Ram can almost picture the place, green to the brim and fragrant with growth. King described it well enough in his excitement a few days back. "And my grandmother - her eyes are _this_ small because she's always smiling. And her back's rounded because she's always bending over, tending to her children."

Ram understands now, King's language. The "children" are succulents. The children are ferns. The children are jasmines and roses. The children better not be fighting or they'd get a talking to, a good scolding.

King scolded him, scolded himself? Back at the camp, in the tent, yelling, "Are you happy now?"

Truth be told, Ram was a bit happy. King - Ram didn't read him wrong after all. King and him, they're more than friends. They're…

Ram flushes with the memory. The heat of King's palm over the back of his neck. The heat of King's lips, harsh, and then yielding, opening, opening for him.

The next time he kisses King, Ram wants them to be sober. He wants to taste King, not the hazy burn of alcohol. The next time, he wants King to smile for him too, the way King coaxes him into smiles, coaxes him out of tangle of words in his head and into the present, the present with King.

Ram's phone chimes with an alert. He stares at it where it lies face down on the table next to the Venus flytrap. King? Or is it TingTing again trying to get him to go eat dinner with the group?

"Is it your dad?" He asks the tender open palms of certain death.

See, best case scenario, Ram thinks King would apologize. For lying, evading, shouting, for "taking advantage" maybe. But King's a gentleman despite his claims to caveman tendencies. When they showered together that one time, King didn't touch him even once. King barely looked at him, turned so the strong line of his back was to Ram and Ram was the one who looked and had to look away.

Anyway, Ram doesn't want an apology. Ram wants a chance.

He turns his phone over and looks. And smiles. It's King. It's a picture of King. It's a picture of King with his grandmother. He's holding up a pot and smiling and she's tucked under his chin she's so tiny.

 _Grandma gifted us a new child_ , the text says. _We'll be home soon._

Ram maximizes the photo to take a good look. King looks good, golden, happy in the sun of his grandma's courtyard, in the arc of her embrace. Ram traces a thumb over King's cheek. He knows the texture of it now, the velvety warmth of a King unraveled.

His phone chimes again and he minimizes the photo.

There on his screen is a new text from King. This one says: _Ai'Ning, I'm sorry. If you feel uncomfortable with me, I can go stay with Bohn so you can stay at the condo as long as you need._

Ram starts typing before he can overthink and double-check himself, censor and delete: _I'm sorry you feel pain because of me even now. Please come home._

And then: _our children's dad and grandma are beautiful._

~

The new plant King brings home is a lily, its petals dotted with splashes of patterns. 

"It came with tattoos!" King exclaims and then stares at Ram's tattoos the way he does that makes Ram feel physically touched. "Like someone I know."

When King only points a tentative finger at Ram's neck, over his dream catcher ink, Ram steps forward, leans in so they touch.

"Do you need to water it now?" He takes their new child from King and sets it down on the table next to its sibling.

"Soon," King blinks at him. "Not now."

 _Good_ , Ram blinks back. _Perfect._

Slowly, surely, he curls a smile onto King's lips. When he pulls back, just a bit, it's to check. _Okay?_

_Okay._

Then King trips and almost kills their children. Good thing Ram's got quick reflexes, grabs him around the waist and pulls him in flush.

This time, their kiss sparks hotter, warm rain over earth, lightning and thunder. Ka-boom goes Ram's heart. And ka-boom comes the reply.

**Author's Note:**

> The wok story is borrowed from my grandparents, although for them it was the wok ~cover. Apparently there are different kinds?? p.s. these two are so cute I couldn't resist writing just a little something for them. There are many after camp fics already, but hope you all don't mind another.


End file.
